1. The Republic of Korea and New Zealand, after the second working-level meeting on the ROK-New Zealand Agreement on Social Security at the Foreign Ministry, Seoul, from March 15 to 17, reached agreement on the text and initialed the Agreement on March 17.

* The head delegates from the ROK and New Zealand were Director-General for Economic Legal Affairs Han Min-young of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Project Manager Lynne Cousins of the Ministry of Social Development, respectively.

2. Despite the great difference in their social security and pension systems, the ROK and New Zealand agreed in their talks to enable the aggregation of the period of pension coverage in the two countries and their nationals to ask for and receive their pension from their home countries while living in the other country. Accordingly, the Agreement, when brought into force, is expected to offer nationals of the two countries substantive benefits in terms of pension entitlement.

3. The ROK-New Zealand Agreement on Social Security carries great significance as the first such agreement of the ROK, whose national pension system requires ten years of pension insurance contributions for benefit entitlement, with New Zealand, which requires ten years of residence in the country for benefit entitlement from the tax coffers.

4. The Agreement is expected to greatly improve the pension entitlement of the ROK nationals who resided in New Zealand in the past and to serve as a basis for further increases in people-to-people and material exchanges in various sectors, including trade, investment, education and tourism, between the two countries

° The two countries, in order to bring the Agreement into force as soon as possible, will seek to formally sign it at an early date and swiftly take necessary domestic procedures, including winning the parliamentary approval for its ratification.

5. Going forward, the ROK government will proactively seek social security agreements with more countries in order to prevent Korean companies and workers overseas from shouldering double social insurance premiums, to enable the aggregation of the period of pension coverage and thereby to improve their pension entitlement.


* unofficial translation